


Confiteor

by brinnanza



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4966726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finch pauses, then continues, “You know, when we hired Ms. Shaw, the idea was for her to assist you, Mr. Reese, not for her to hand off the number to someone else in order to tend to your disturbingly frequent gunshot wounds.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confiteor

**Author's Note:**

> For [zetablarian](http://zetablarian.tumblr.com/), whose fault this is. Thanks to Aadarshinah for the beta.

“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Reese,” says Finch as Reese slowly comes to. The tone is an attempt at levity, but when Reese opens his eyes and blinks away the last of the painkiller fog, he can see Finch’s eyes and mouth are lined with tension and his posture is even more ramrod straight than usual.

“Sorry, Finch,” Reese rasps. Finch holds out a glass of water with a straw and he sips it, trying to make the nebulous collection of memories of this particular op coalesce into something solid. 

They’re in one of Finch’s safe houses by the looks of it, one that Reese has only vague memories of. The one they use as a hospital then -- Reese is usually unconscious or on enough drugs to be nearly so when he’s here. Sunlight is streaming through a high window (he thinks he remembers it was dark out when he was last conscious), and Finch looks a little tired around the eyes, but his suit is still well-pressed. Either Reese hasn’t been out that long or he’s been out long enough for Shaw to insist Finch go home for a while.

When Reese is finished with the water, Finch sets the glass down on the bedside table, and Reese tries to lever himself up into a sitting position. The sudden wave of pain in his shoulder makes him stop. “I get shot again?”

Finch makes a face. “I daresay your right shoulder must be made almost entirely of scar tissue at this point.”

“And the number?”

“Ms. Shaw was able to remand Miss Disenso into police custody, yes.” Finch pauses, then continues, “You know, when we hired Ms. Shaw, the idea was for her to assist you, Mr. Reese, not for her to hand off the number to someone else in order to tend to your disturbingly frequent gunshot wounds.”

Reese gives him an apologetic smile. “The bad guys have guns, Finch. Even my luck has limits.”

This doesn’t mollify Finch at all, not that Reese had expected it to. “It wouldn’t hurt to rely a little less on luck.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Reese tries to push himself up again, using his good side this time, and spots Bear curled up on the floor at the end of the bed. After another moment of effort, he resigns himself to remaining on his back for the time being. He gives a whistle and Bear hops up onto the bed, settling onto Reese’s feet.

Finch’s face cycles through several levels of disapproval and displeasure, but all he says is, “You should get some more rest. You’re probably going to be in a lot of pain when the medication wears off.”

“I’ve had worse,” Reese says, but his eyelids are drooping a little, and a nap does actually sound very nice. There’s no new number as far as he can tell, no emergency, and Bear is warm across his legs. Finch has resumed working on a laptop, and the steady _clack clack clack_ is familiar and comforting, so he lets himself be pulled under once more.

 

When he wakes again, his shoulder hurts but not to an unmanageable degree, and his head is a lot clearer. The window is dark, there’s an empty take-out container on the bedside table, and Finch is dozing upright in his chair. His arms are crossed and there are faint lines across his forehead. Even if Reese hadn’t found him in this exact position on several previous occasions, he has enough experience grabbing sleep when- and wherever he can to know Finch is going to be sore when he wakes up.

Reese drags himself into a sitting position, ignoring the pain the best he can. Bear wakes up when he moves, but he just looks up at Reese and resettles when he stills again. Finch’s chair is right next to the bed, so Reese doesn’t have to stretch to reach over and tap him lightly on the knee. “Finch. Wake up.”

Finch stirs, blinking awake.”Mr. Reese,” he greets, his voice soft from sleep. He shifts around a little, and only a faint tension around his mouth betrays what is probably a significant amount of discomfort. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Reese says, reaching down to scratch Bear behind the ears. “You should know better than to sleep like that. You didn’t need to stay -- you could have gone home for a few hours.”

“I can assure you, I’m quite fine,” Finch says primly, brushing off Reese’s concern as usual. He pushes to his feet, wincing briefly in pain, and leans over to look at the bandages covering Reese’s shoulder. “This should be changed.”

“I can do it,” Reese says. “Or I can call Shaw. I’m sure there’s something more important you could be doing,”

“Many things,” Finch agrees wryly, but he shuffles around to the other side of the bed to gather the necessary medical supplies. He makes quick work of the bandage, pausing midway to make sure the wound isn’t infected. He’s become quite the capable field medic, Reese thinks fondly.

“Do you need anything for the pain?” Finch asks, his fingers gentle.

Reese shakes his head. He’s had much worse. Waking up in a bed in a safe house under Finch’s diligent care instead of patching himself up with duct tape or whatever’s handy and gritting his teeth through any pain is still something of a novelty, an unspeakable luxury he still can’t believe he’s allowed.

He catches Finch’s wrist to stop him and pulls him down into view. “Thank you,” he says.

Finch just looks at him for a moment. “Of course, Mr. Reese.”

\---

“Mr. Reese, have you managed to locate Mr. Brower yet?”

Reese taps his earpiece, then ducks behind a shipping crate to avoid the hail of gunfire the latest number, a middle-aged paralegal with a penchant for blackmail and now apparently attempted murder, is sending his way.

“You could say that,” says Reese dryly. He leans out and squeezes off a couple shots of his own. They’re returned almost immediately and Reese has to dive out of the way -- Brower is an infuriatingly good shot for an amateur.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Finch voice is high-pitched and nervous, though really, Reese thinks he should be used to the sound of gunfire over comms by now.

“It means,” says Reese, peering carefully around his cover to wait for Brower to appear again, “that I’m going to have to call you back, Harold.” He taps the earpiece again, muting Finch’s strangled, “Mr. Reese!” and aims.

Brower leans out again, and Reese fires. Brower goes down as his knees give out, and Reese is able to calmly stalk over, kick his gun away, and peer down at him. “Mr. Brower,” he says, a vaguely threatening smile twisting his lips. “I don’t particularly enjoy being shot at.”

 

Once Brower has been safely delivered into the tender mercies of the eighth precinct, Reese makes his way back to the library.

“You couldn’t have called to check in, Mr. Reese?” Finch says without turning away from his monitors. “We did leave off in somewhat perilous circumstances.”

Reese drops into a chair and starts stripping his .45 to clean it. He wonders idly if Finch has an alias named Harold Hen. “You weren’t watching the cameras?”

“That isn’t the point!” Finch turns around now and aims a stern look in Reese’s direction.

Reese leans back in his chair. “Relax, Finch. If I’d have gotten shot, I’d have called.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, and Reese regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth. Finch goes very still, his lips pressed together in a firm white line. “Managing to avoid getting shot _this_ time,” he says, his voice very cool, “does not preclude the possibility of getting shot _next_ time, as you well know.”

“I know,” Reese allows, because he does, of course he does. There’s a part of him, smaller than it used to be but still there, that thinks he should have died in Ordos. There’s a bullet out there somewhere with his name on it, and he knows Finch is the only reason it hasn’t found him yet, the only reason the bullet he keeps in his pocket next to Finch’s cufflink hasn’t found its way to the barrel of Reese’s gun.

There’s more Finch wants to say, Reese can see -- probably a sternly-worded lecture about Reese’s rather cavalier attitude toward his personal safety and unnecessary risk-taking behaviors, but all he says is, “I hope you don’t think you’re replaceable, Mr. Reese.”

And Reese is touched by the sentiment, really, but it isn’t true. What he does is -- it’s dangerous, and he’s maybe got a particular knack for it, but it’s not like he’s the only ex-spook with a gun. Finch found him, after all, found Shaw. He could find someone else to do what needs to be done if necessary. In a hundred lifetimes, Reese could never repay what Finch has given him, so he’ll give Finch every second, every breath for as long as Finch will have him, but he has too much experience staring death in the face and watching death back down to think he won’t eventually blink first.

Finch sighs, and then he gets up and motions for Bear to get his leash. He reached for his coat. “Shall we do Thai for dinner?”

“Okay,” says Reese.

\--

Reese makes it through several numbers without incident or injury, and then he gets shot again a few weeks later. It’s just a graze -- he barely noticed it at the time -- but it’s still bleeding when he gets back to the library after convincing their number to call off the hit on her ex-girlfriend. He holds his palm against the wound to try and staunch the bleeding and calls up the stairs, “Hey Finch, you think you can get out the first aid kit?”

When he gets up to the gate, Finch is already there, his mouth a hard line and a wad of gauze in hand. He presses it to Reese’s arm, then ushers him over to the chair at his workstation. Bear makes a concerned whine and starts to get up, but he settles down again at Finch’s low command.

After a moment of steady pressure, Finch lets up, and Reese shrugs out of his jacket and his shirt. There’s a ragged hole in both, and the upper half of one of the shirt sleeves is stained bright red.

Finch leans in close to inspect the wound. His forehead is wrinkled and his eyebrows furrowed, but he says, “I don’t think this will require stitches.” He wipes away the blood, disinfects, and applies a clean bandage, pressing the tape into place with more force than is probably necessary.

“It’s just a scratch,” Reese says dismissively, a smirk quirking one corner of his mouth. He looks up to meet Finch’s gaze, but Finch just frowns and gathers up the blood-stained gauze and bandage wrappers. He disappears into the other room to dispose of them and returns a moment later with a clean shirt, which he hands to Reese without a word.

Reese gets up out of the chair to pull the shirt on, and Finch sits down and settles his hands over the keyboard. He hesitates for a moment, then turns to face Reese again.

“It’s just…” he starts. “Is it really necessary to throw yourself in the path of every bullet, Mr. Reese?”

It’s on the tip of Reese’s tongue to protest -- he had, in fact, been throwing himself _out_ of the path of this particular bullet, to some relative success -- but Finch’s shoulders are tense and his face is drawn, so instead he says, “That’s what you hired me for.”

Finch’s frown deepens. “I wouldn’t put it exactly that way.”

Reese shakes out a sleeve to button the cuff. “You said at the beginning we’d probably end up dead,” he reminds him.

“So I did.” Finch sighs and rubs a hand across the bridge of his nose, looking suddenly very tired. “If it’s all the same to you, though, I’d like to put that day off for as long as possible.”

“I can’t make any promises, Finch, you know that.”

“You could _try_ , John,” Finch snaps, steel in his voice. He’s breathing more rapidly and his hands are balled into fists on his knees.

Reese feels a distant sense of perverse satisfaction at seeing the usually unflappable Harold Finch so riled up, pink-faced and almost shouting, before abruptly realizing that he’s standing at attention, his spine rigid and his arms stiff by his sides. 

Finch takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, then uncurls his fists. “Mr. Reese,” he says, his voice calm and under control once again. “I have lost… so many people since this began.” A sad smile plays across his lips, and then he looks up at Reese. Very quietly, he continues, “I’d prefer not to lose you as well. You are far too important to me.”

And -- Oh. _Oh_. Reese has been walking in the dark for long enough to know that searching for god is pointless at best and confession’s no good for sins that can never be forgiven, but he finds himself crossing the room in two long strides and sliding to his knees in front of Finch, his head bent in benediction. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

After a moment, he feels Finch’s tentative fingers carding through his hair, touch light and skittish like a sparrow. There’s no absolution for people like him, Reese thinks, but maybe this is close enough.

“I am aware there are no guarantees, you know,” Finch says softly some time later. “I’m not asking for the impossible.” His hands are more sure now, stroking through Reese’s hair with such tenderness that Reese can’t help but lean forward, pressing his forehead to Finch’s knee. 

Finch trails his fingers behind Reese’s ear, then along his jaw. He tilts Reese’s head back, and Reese finally looks up to meet his eyes.

“I just wish you’d be more careful. Do you think you could do that?” His voice is carefully neutral, but there’s something in his eyes that gives Reese the sense he’s asking for more than just increased attention for his physical safety.

“Anything,” Reese manages. His throat is suddenly so dry and the air is too thin. “Anything, Harold -- you have to know--”

“I do.” Finch gives him a long, considering look, then says, “Come here.”

Reese surges upward, bracing his hands on the armrests of the chair. He’ll give Harold anything, do anything, impossible or not, if only Harold asks him, but there has always been this one last divide between them, some unspoken appeal to propriety and their individual oceans of private grief.

Finch’s hands come up to touch his face, feather-light and a little hesitant. He raises his eyes in question, one last confirmation, or maybe an out.

Reese closes the distance between them and kisses him.

It’s slow and unhurried and almost reverent. Reese has traveled from one end of the Earth to the other, and nothing has ever seemed worthy of his devotion, but Finch slides a hand around to the back of his neck to draw him closer, and Reese thinks _yes, yes, yes_.


End file.
